Playing by the Rules
by Captain Domino
Summary: It was a boring, rainy day at 221b, and Sherlock and John decided to play a game of Cluedo...
"Mrs. Peacock, in the kitchen, with the candlestick," John said, his finger still resting on the tip of his yellow game piece. He glanced over at Sherlock, who sat across from him at the table, which had been cleared of chemicals, stacks of papers, and – _shudder_ – a foot in the process of defrosting, to make room for the game.

It had started off as a calm, rainy day, and there were no cases that would catch Sherlock's interest. He had been so desperate for something to do while he waited for the foot on the table to finish defrosting for his experiment, and was driving John up the wall as he tore apart half the flat, papers and knickknacks flying this way and that, with brief interludes where he would stop, grab his (John's) laptop, and check the website for a new case before going at it again, only to stop two minutes later, on the other side of the room, to pull out his phone to check yet again. So John had to think of something, and quickly, before Sherlock _really_ started to act crazy. It would only be a matter of time before he started searching for the stash of cigarettes that John had hidden.

So John had started throwing out suggestions in desperation. All of them were ignored until John proposed a board game. Sherlock had stopped in the middle of his frantic pacing and thought about it.

Sherlock's thoughts automatically went to the _Childhood_ room of his mind palace, in which there was a section devoted entirely to board games that he and Mycroft had played on rainy days like this, long ago. Operation, Monopoly, Cluedo…

Cluedo. That had been one of the first games they had played. Sherlock distinctly remembered throwing away the game rules, as they had both agreed that they would rather play the game by their own, obviously superior, rules. Over time, the way they played the game evolved so much so that they finally abandoned the game board and moved on to objects instead, and so the game of Deductions had been born.

Still, though, that game board and its many pieces and cards had an unmovable place in that _Childhood_ room, as those rainy afternoons, filled with thinking, observing, and of course deducing, desperately trying to beat Mycroft just once, had very likely had an impact upon his adult self, since the more he tried to win, the more he honed his skills. And the more he honed his skills, the more he was able to deduce new things all the time, and thus, eventually, lead him to where he was today.

"Alright then," Sherlock had said, to John's relief. "How about Cluedo?"

And so John had fetched the game and emptied the box's contents onto the table that Sherlock had cleared. Sherlock sat in silence, his curly hair sticking up in all directions and his dressing gown slipping off of his shoulder. His pale eyes slightly narrowed as John began to sort the cards into three different piles, and it was then that he spoke up.

"Wait, what are you doing that for?"

"The cards?" John looked up in confusion. "You know, for the envelope?" John plucked up the small envelope that was to contain the solution and turned it about in his hand for emphasis.

"But why are you separating them?"

"Because…that's how it goes. You separate by room, weapon, and suspect, remember? It's in the rules."

"Oh…" Sherlock sighed, putting his elbows on the table and resting his chin on his fists. "Right. The _rules._ " He spat out the word _rules_ as if it were the most horrible concept to ever befoul his mind.

"Yeah, the rules. How else would you play?" John immediately regretted asking that question as Sherlock scoffed, rolling his eyes as far up as they would go.

"Oh, John, you and your simple, unused brain, constrained by even more simplistic rules that you force upon yourself as if you didn't have a choice but to embrace the game creator's narrow eyed view of what could be a much more detailed and expanded amusement to pass the time if only they didn't feel the need to cater to a slow, idiotic demographic that-"

"Alright, _alright_ ," John interrupted, rubbing his forehead in exasperation. "How do _you_ play Cluedo?"

"Well," Sherlock said, clearly glad to have been asked that question. He leaned back in his seat, sweeping all the cards up in one swift motion and shuffling them. "First of all, the cards I put into the envelope are completely drawn at random, no sorting necessary. Then-"

"Wait, wait," John cut in, slightly shaking his head. "Hold on, that doesn't make sense. What if you ended up having, say, two rooms and one suspect as the solution? How would that work?"

"Very, very easily," Sherlock smoothly replied. "Two rooms? Two injuries from a chase throughout the house. The second wound would have been fatal. No weapon would be necessary, as we both know that you don't need a weapon to kill someone."

"Well, yeah, but…what if it was three suspects? What then?"

"Three people would have been in on it, obviously. You see?" Sherlock continued shuffling, the cards flying through his hands in a small blur. "And normally, I play with five cards in the envelope. At least."

"Five?" John began tapping his fingers to his forehead in frustration. Of course it wouldn't be as simple as just getting a game out and playing as normal with Sherlock Holmes. With Sherlock, everything had to be _complicated._

"Yes, five. It makes things more interesting. Anyways, when it comes down to actual gameplay, there would be three piles of cards, at first inaccessible to the players, each becoming accessible as-"

"Come _on_ , Sherlock," John groaned. "What's so bad with playing the game the normal way? I agreed to play _Cluedo,_ and _Cluedo_ is about finding out the room, weapon, and suspect, right? I don't have all day to learn how to play the game-"

"Yes you do, actually. You're not going out for the rest of the day, judging by your wristwatch-"

"- _in a completely different way_ instead of actually _playing,_ which is what we _agreed_ to do-"

"Sorry, I don't _actually_ remember agreeing to play according to your dull, simplistic, mediocre rules."

"Look, Sherlock, do you want to play or not?!" There was probably a visibly throbbing vein in John's forehead by now. Sherlock, the infuriating prat, was probably doing this on purpose.

Sherlock's mouth twitched ever so slightly as he scanned John's face for a few moments. Finally, he let out a long, loud, dramatic sigh as he tilted his head up towards the ceiling, as though the thought of playing Cluedo by the _dull, simplistic, mediocre_ rules was complete agony. "Oh, _fine_. Only because I have nothing else to do." With that, Sherlock handed back the cards, picked up the game rules with a huff, and scanned through them quickly as John sorted out the cards and pieces, letting out a silent sigh of relief.

Presently, after having made his accusation regarding Mrs. Peacock, John let go of his game piece and continued watching Sherlock with raised eyebrows.

"Hmm," Sherlock said, his index finger lightly tapping his upper lip. "Are you sure about that, John?"

"Of course I'm sure," John said, trying very hard to not grit his teeth. He already knew what was coming. It had happened every time John made it to a new room and made a new accusation, which had been…three times, now. He was surprised that he'd lasted this long without chinning his brilliant, yet completely obnoxious, friend.

"Well…it's just…in quarters such as that, with no immediate access to-"

" _For God's sake, Sherlock._ " John was very quickly approaching the edge. The last tiny sands of patience were quickly being drained to the bottom of the hourglass, and if Sherlock were to use his powers of deduction where it counted, he would quickly see that he would _not_ want to push John over the edge. " _Stop_ being bloody _overly_ _logical_ about a _board game_ and _show me a card_ if you have one. Do you have one or not?"

"It's too easy, John!" Sherlock whined. "You know that your _precious game rules_ state that the minimum amount of players is _three,_ yes? Think about it! There are only _three_ places a card can be: in your hand, in my hand, and in the envelope. If I have deduced the other two things, then right away I will know, should you not show me a card, that the only place for it to be is in the envelope."

" _Do you have a card?"_ John knew that he was (maybe) overreacting. On the one hand, it _was_ just a board game. On the other hand, it was Sherlock Holmes that he had decided to play said board game with. Why did he agree to this, again?

Sherlock made a face that could only be described as a pout as he looked down at his cards. He ripped one of them out and held it out for John to see. Mrs. Peacock.

" _There._ Now write it up in your silly little notes as I play my turn by the silly little rules. I figured out who did it, by the way."

John took a deep breath in through his nose. He let it out through his mouth. He took another deep breath and let that one out as well. "How can you possibly know that? You haven't even gone in any of the rooms yet." John was impressed by how calm he had managed to keep his voice this time. Barely managed, but managed nonetheless.

"It is simply the structure of the game's rules that tell me everything I need to know." Sherlock had set his cards down and was resting his chin upon his hands, which were pressed together, his long fingers fanning out. "It was the victim. And he isn't dead; he faked his own death. After leading the others to believe that there was indeed a murder, they are left scrambling round and round the house, throwing pointless accusations at each other. And the fact that there is indeed a room that they need to discover makes it very clear that the body was not found in any of the rooms. And so, he would have been found in the hallway, or outside the house altogether, if he was found at all. And the weapons themselves would be decoys, because if there is, indeed, a weapon…John?"

John had stood, his chair screeching backwards across the kitchen floor. _Don't attack. Don't attack._

Sherlock seemed to finally register the sheer amount of rage in John's expression. "Honestly, John. It's only a board game. I don't know why you're making such a big deal over this."

And that was what sent John Watson toppling over the edge.

Grabbing the edge of the game board, he yanked it away from the table, game pieces flying everywhere. Sherlock's own purple piece hit him directly in the nose. John stormed into the living room, the game board clutched in his hand so tightly that his fingers were turning purple. He pried away the knife from the mantelpiece, and an envelope that had previously been pinned into place fluttered to the floor as John stabbed the game to the wall.

The only sounds for what seemed an eternity were of John's heavy breathing and the tick-tocking of the clock. Finally, Sherlock broke the silence.

"Oh, the foot's ready now."

Somehow, that was more infuriating than anything else he could have said. John stomped to the door, grabbing his coat as he did so, and pounded down the stairs, nearly running straight into Mrs. Hudson.

"Oh, dear – did you two have another domestic? Don't worry, I'm sure you'll sort it all out. And it's _always_ worth making it up in the end." Mrs. Hudson gave John a coy little wink.

With that cherry to top off John's evening gone to hell, he slammed the door to 221b behind him.

 **...**

* * *

 **...**

 **A/N:** Long time no see, lovely readers. :) I hope you enjoyed!...Seriously, though, have you ever played Cluedo (or Clue, as we call it in the States) with two people? No wonder Sherlock was so bored with it. I was looking up alternative ways of playing in this case, and found a lot of interesting different ways that people have used. One of my favorites involved both players only having a few cards (four or five, I think?), with a "ghost" pile that you draw from if the second player doesn't have anything, discarding one of your own cards to the bottom of the stack as you do so. But there are a lot of other ways to play out there, and of _course_ Sherlock would have his own way of playing. :P


End file.
